


Timing and Falling

by circlegirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (except not really but basically), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Biphobia, Falling In Love, Fighting, Fluff, Gen, Homophobia, Human Castiel, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Plotty, School
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circlegirl/pseuds/circlegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's ready to be done with high school, and he doesn't really care about how well he does anymore. He's closed off to letting people in because of how much he moves and the kind of life he has. Castiel fell from Heaven a little earlier and is a human in the Novak family. Their relationship grows. How does this affect he entirety of the plans for the Winchesters yet to come?</p><p>In which Cas falls the same year Dean is born, and they meet at one of the high school's Dean goes to, and how that changes the plot of Supernatural.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hiccups in the Order Aforementioned

Dean Winchester was standing in front of a group of restless kids a few months away from graduating from this hellhole, introducing himself in the most effortless way possible.

He flirted with a girl wearing a skirt so short it had to be breaking some sort of school guideline, and the teacher already was eyeing him like all his teachers did. He’d had so many up to this point it wasn’t even worth keeping up with the names. That girl’s name though, he did remember. Rebecca. It was a pretty name. The “R” reminded him of Robin, but that was trying pretty hard to see similarities between this girl and Robin… not that he knew Rebecca beyond her lovely skirt and name. 

He needed something to make the next… days? Weeks? Worthwhile. School seemed pretty unnecessary when his dad taught him everything he’d need to know for the life he’d really be living. Sammy liked it though, and that was a plus. Every new school was just another reason to drop out (John wouldn’t have it), but every school also just gave Sam an increased determination to get into a college he could stay at (John wouldn’t have that either, and the idea scared Dean a little).

In Math he tried to remember some more names, though he pretended he didn’t give a fuck about anyone. There was an Alex with bright red hair who looked nearly as much fun as Rebecca, the studious boy named John who told him to shut up and pay attention while he tried to charm Rebecca a bit, who happened to have this class, and that one guy who stood out named Castiel. What sort of name was Castiel? It sounded like one of those angel names he’d used before when doing a summoning or something. The guy was also wearing a dramatic black coat and a lot of gel in his hair. It wasn’t a bad look.

He tried to ignore these factors as he focused on Rebecca, who, while seeming flattered, actually seemed to want to pay attention to the math and seemed really good at it.

In English, Rebecca wasn’t even there, and the teacher was going on about some book he actually thought he read part of in some other high school course some time. It all sounded like nonsense to him. Maybe he’d pass the time by focusing on how this was the last period before lunch?

They were working on some essay and the teacher had already been exasperated by Dean enough to give him any sort of help. This was a good sign: sometimes English teachers tried so hard to make Dean succeed when he had no want to further his academic career. Dean was being quiet, and that was apparently enough for her not to kick him out.

“Dean,” someone caught his attention while he was completely zoned out. He realised this was the first time someone actually caught his attention for something besides him being “annoying”, unless this was also about that.

“What?” Dean said sharply to the person in the next behind him. He recognised the guy immediately because, to be honest, he wasn’t very difficult to mistake.

It was the kid named Castiel, and for having a religious name he was wearing an awful lot of eye liner. Maybe he was doing that because it’d seem sacrilegious to not accent very blue eyes.

“What?” Dean snapped sharply again. Making new friends the Winchester way. Or maybe it was just the Dean way; he doubted his little brother had these problems.

“I’m going to explain to you what we’re doing,” Castiel stated, not offered. “I’m Castiel, by the way.”

“Weird name. Nice to meet you, Cas,” Dean said. _Cas_ frowned but didn’t protest at the sudden nickname. Dean tried to mean it as a deliberate insult, insult the guy’s name first to distract from everything else going on that this hot religious kid Cas was suddenly talking to him about, but Dean gave nicknames to a lot of people.

Not that, Dean, by any means thought of this guy Cas as hot.

“My parents are very religious. My sister’s named Claire though, not sure why I couldn’t have been named something like that. Or maybe Luke,” Cas explained. Somehow it made Dean smile and chuckle a little.

“I like the name Cas,” Dean said. He didn’t really even know why. “My last name’s a gun, Winchester. I like that too.”

“Winchester, either work on something else or leave the classroom,” the teacher called to him, probably for his distraction of the other students. Before Dean could make some sarcastic retort, Cas replied for him.

“Giving him the layout of this class,” he replied. Something made him smile again.

“In any case, we’re reading Lord of the Flies, which I have read before so I know it pretty well. I moved up here for Illinois not long ago, and we read it in 9th grade,” Cas gave an off laugh. “Now I get to repeat that journey. But it’s a good book. It shouldn’t take that long to read.”

“Is that the one with the boys on the island? I think I may have read a chapter,” Dean replied. “I’ve moved a lot.”

“Just read the whole thing tonight; it’ll make the class easier,” Cas suggested. Though the conversation flowed, Dean could tell Cas seemed pretty anxious about, well, everything.

“I’m not planning on being here, or reading anything, in this class,” Dean said. Hadn’t Cas caught onto that yet? Hadn’t Cas been there when he’d been completely not paying attention in some other classes?

“What? You’re incapable of reading a book that weighs the same as a couple paperclips?”

“Not scared, nerd-boy. Not willing to sacrifice the time.”

“Well I was gonna sacrifice my time to help you get caught up in the classes we have. Should I just not talk to you then?” Cas looked dead serious and little afraid at his own comment.

“Why would I care?” Dean bluffed. Despite not knowing Cas very well or having any want to form any friendship (that sounded hazardous, he didn’t want to deal with the pain of losing something, even if not in the same sense or way, that he’d lost Robin), he still wanted to keep talking to Cas. The idea of not talking to him sounded terrifying.

And that was honestly a little terrifying.

Cas took a few seconds to respond, obviously taken aback and he looked a little pale for a split second there, before replying.

“Because you like my name.”

“Oh, well you’ve got me there. Why don’t you just work on whatever you need to work on?”

Dean said this partly to try to blow Cas off, and partly because he was scared that English teacher would kick him out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I usually only write angst and pure awful things, but I started this last December, and I love the concept, so I think I'll keep writing it.
> 
> The tags are also no where near refined yet. I'll get to that when I add more chapters. Sorry they are not very good right now. If you managed to find this fic, I hope you enjoy it!


	2. Snapping and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean doesn't know how to deal with someone being kind and genuine to him, so he handles it the best way he knows how.

At lunch, Dean had planned on seeing if he could say hi to Sammy (he couldn’t, upperclassmen had different lunch time) and talk to Rebecca some more, but he spent much more of his time thinking about his talk with Cas.

What the fuck was that anyways? The guy had put genuine interest into Dean’s life. He had even outright said it: he was willing to put time into helping Dean. Didn’t he understand Dean was well past that point? That the end of senior year was in several months, and Dean probably wouldn’t be here more than a few weeks?

Probably not. Cas probably didn’t know any of it. How could he know how far gone Dean really was? For a second, he really regretted the life he led, and that was the first time in a really long time that that thought wasn’t connected to Robin (Who Dean had to forget, it was two years ago, and she probably didn’t remember his name.)

He kind of wished he could feel worthy and stable enough to become friends (friends, friends, he emphasized in his mind) with a guy as genuine and kind as Cas seemed to be. Caught up in these thoughts, instead of pursuing … that girl… Cas sat down beside him.

“Are you going to read it?” he asked after a moment.

“Not a chance in hell,” Dean replied quickly.

“What’s your next period?” Cas asked.

“History,” Dean replied suspiciously.

“Well there’s one seat empty in that class and that is beside me, and I’m not going to speak to you until you decide to read that novel,” Cas bargained. At first, this made Dean smile again, but after that he was done feeling flattered. What the hell was this guy on, anyways? Was he trying to goad Dean into giving a damn?

“Well, good, because I don’t want to hear you talk about how much you dig Julius' ass,” Dean retorted, before abruptly standing up and leaving Cas there, looking a little awe-stricken and hurt.

\---

Cas kept good on his promise and didn’t speak to him all the way through history, not even when Dean asked pointed questions. It made little sense to him why he was asking these questions, usually he would just study up a bit before a test and hope he’d get a D. Maybe he just wanted to irritate Cas who wasn’t giving him a single word.

Well, that’s definitely why, after a solid hours of being ignored every few minutes when Dean had a question about the teaching style or a piece of history he’d missed (he’d gotten a bunch of bits and pieces in the last few years, all at varying stages), Dean decided to say something really wicked.

“I’m noticing, Cas, that all of the people who are beside each other seem awfully at ease, don’t you? Guessing there was no seating chart. What does that mean? You were completely alone. Can’t help but wonder why. Besides your charming personality, does that have anything to do with that eyeliner you wear?”

Dean didn’t even know what he meant by that.

Cas didn’t say anything to him still, but his expression went blank and the colour drained from his face as he dropped his pen; consequently, it fell onto the ground. Dean wanted to apologise immediately. He was making _his_ point, and this time he didn’t want to make it. Why didn’t he want to make it?

Instead of apologizing, he picked up Cas’s pen before he did and coldly said, “You dropped your pen.”

\---

Dean left school after History despite the fact he had some class to be (Biology?). He went straight to the motel they were staying at and spent the hour reading the book. He did go to pick Sammy up from school, chatted with him a bit, but after that he continued to read that book.

He finished it.

He even nearly teared up when Simon and Piggy died. It hurt a bit how much he resembled Jack, in the hostile way in any case. He couldn’t depict himself as a good dictator though.

Somehow he still felt like Cas wasn’t going to want to talk to him the next day.

To distract himself, he tried to work on his math (was he in Calculus? Was this a mistake? Why would he be placed in the advanced track?) and read up in his history book about the Greeks to try to catch up.

He was just trying to blow of time.

Usually he would’ve just gotten drunk. Maybe there was still time for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it'll get more painful. I promise. this is basically the most vanilla, least violent piece of fanfiction I've ever written.
> 
> Won't stay that way.  
> \--  
> should I continue this like   
> give me feedback and whatnot


	3. Confusion and Feigning Nonignorance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas won't stop caring about Dean, and Dean is really done saying random shit to hurt him, so he tries to keep up in his classes, but struggles.

He did not want to be friends with Castiel Novak. Friends meant something you had to say goodbye to. That was the last thing he needed. His dad was on a hunt; they’d be gone in no time. He should just let Cas ignore him or hate him or whatever Cas wanted to do.

His first class was culinary. It seemed easy enough. Dean just tried to ignore the fact the most of this class he’d ever use at home would be to put the burrito in the microwave. He didn’t zone out, though he wanted to, or anything else he could’ve done. He paid attention. Maybe that’s something he wanted to do regardless of the fact that when they moved, which was inevitable, he might not even be able to take the same class with the same course again. His lifestyle was completely free of getting comfortable in his daily environment and doing so just made things worse, but somehow he found himself doing just that.

The next period was the first he’d gone to where he sat beside Rebecca, which was also math. He should probably talk to a counselor about that. Why was Rebecca in both? He paid more attention to his book than to her.

This, he understood more. It must’ve been the track he was supposed to be in. Everything was still confusing and made no sense, but he recognised it more. The next class held Cas in it. He didn’t say a word to Dean, or even look at him. He was several desks away, but it still hurt.

Why did this matter so much? Dean was a jerk to a lot of people a lot of times and purposely tried to cut people off; hell, that’s what he did to Cas! Why does he care?

And, when he was in English and he actually was able to complete the assignment, he wondered why he read that damn book. Apparently the class was only one Chapter 11. Nearly done, but Dean was a little ahead. Abnormal.

“So you did read it,” Cas said from behind him when they were both finished and most of the class had turned to whispers for some poor souls actually trying to read the next chapter.

Dean turned around to face Cas. It was the first time he’d actually seen him face on today, not just the back of his head. He flinched as he noticed the lack of eye make-up. Lack of eye make-up on a man had never had an adverse affect to Dean, but something told him why this had happened.

Cas looked like he gave no fucks, he’d been downright ignored Dean, how would some unbelievably mean comment, that said a helluva lot more about Dean than Cas, make him not want to wear that eyeliner the next day?

“Yeah,” Dean said, his stomach in knots. He didn’t want to deal with this. He didn’t want to believe he’d actually hurt Cas. It was much easier when he knew the person wouldn’t care. Couldn’t he have said something less cutting and more outrageous?

He hadn’t felt conscious of his actions when he said that, though.

“Guess that means I’m talking to you then,” Cas replied. His voice was tight, but he still gave a bit of a smile. Dean was baffled.

“What about what I said to you yesterday?” Dean asked.

“I don’t care,” Cas replied. And it was worse than him ignoring Dean forevermore because of how obviously Cas did.

“You look hot in eyeliner,” Dean said, trying to compensate in some way. It was true.

It wasn’t until a moment later that he quite realised what he said.

“I mean, I assume,” he amended awfully, hoping not too much damage was done.

“I’m going to work on the worksheet for the next chapter,” Cas said. Dean just replied okay and turned back to face his desk. He look back at Cas and swore he saw a flicker of a grin.

Dean completed that worksheet in class too. It was surprisingly easy, just simple stuff about something he had read the night before.

Then he was smiling right down to himself because screw Cas, the bastard. It’d been only one day, and he’d already screwed up Dean’s plan of surviving high school after Robin without any regrets.

Oh, he was going to regret whatever was going to happen no matter what choice he made, now.

… after only one day of knowing the bastard.

\---

To compensate for the little comment Dean had made about Cas looking hot (which he meant meaning to compliment Cas, just to make up for the cruel comment he’d said yesterday, nothing else), Dean decided he would ask Rebecca out at lunch. He hadn’t really talked to her all that much whatsoever, his mind very en-wrapped in Cas, but he had on the first day and he was pretty sure he’d caught her attention a little.

He couldn't locate her, so he thought he’d ask a red head he had had English with named Alex. He’d said hi to her the first day before he’d zoned out and before Cas said hello.

“Alex, hey, ooh, looking good today,” Dean said. She whipped her hair around, it tossing about like flames, till her disgusted demeanor faced him head on.

“What do you want, faggot?” she asked. Before Dean could look taken aback his heart rate accelerated.

“What you calling me a faggot for? I was here to ask you out? Do I look like a faggot to you?” Alex’s eyebrows raised simultaneously for a second, after which she smirked.

“Yeah, actually, you do. And you’ve been flirting with Novak since the second you got here. Which wasn’t that long ago,” Yeah no kidding, Dean thought. Yesterday. “I’m not being your beard.”

“Trust me, sweetheart, that is not what I’m looking for.”

“So you did not call him hot?”

“Of course not.” Alex actually raised her eyebrows this time.

“Bye, Dean,” she said, before turning around and leaving. Dean looked around a full cafeteria full of people he didn’t know in a place he really really didn’t want to be. Inside, he was scared he wasn’t gonna get enough air, but his composure was kept.

Something told him he’d feel better if he were sitting beside Cas; in fact, that’s exactly what he wanted to be doing. Talking to Cas. He didn’t know why, but hell, if that didn’t sound enjoyable. Too bad that was the last thing he should be doing right now. He decided he wasn’t hungry at all and thought he should roam the school hallways until someone got angry at him. He hadn’t gotten far before someone caught up with him.

“Dean? You okay?”

It was Cas.

A part of Dean finally felt relieved and another started panicking again. Of course, none of this was noticeable on his face.

“What do you want?” Dean asked aggressively.

“You rushed out, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m not hungry. Is that a hard concept to grasp?” Dean asked. Cas looked hurt, yet something about that hurt look also seemed persistent.

Which was rather annoying. Usually Dean could scare people away with enough aggression, but it just seemed to hurt Cas while the guy remained interested in Dean.

“And I wasn’t flirting with you!” Cas seemed to ignore that statement.

“I saw you talking to Alex. I heard what she said to you,” Cas said quietly. “Look, I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t want to hang around me.”

Suddenly, the lies felt a little too choking. All Dean did was lie. He was a professional; he was good at it; it was okay. But lying to Cas… more? It was easier to lie to Sammy. That’s why he couldn’t just say _“Yeah, I don’t, so leave me the fuck alone.”_ to Cas, something that would be completely uncalled for and irrational even if it was what he should be doing right now.

Instead, he persisted the ignored statement.

“I wasn’t flirting with you!”

Cas smiled bitterly.

“I know that, dude. Being friends with a gay guy doesn’t mean you want to have sex with the gay guy.” Now Dean did look taken aback. “A lot of people seem to not understand that.”

“You’re gay?” Dean exclaimed. Cas looked at him as if he were dense.

“Yes, and you aren’t. I thought that was obvious. Is this why you were willing to talk to me?”

There is was again; this time Dean’s insensitively causing Cas to look hurt when Dean just wanted Cas to be done with him. Dean didn’t want to be anyone’s friend. That sounded really dire. He should say something now. Something… something bad.

But he really didn’t want to.

“Dude, I don’t care if you like dick. Means you won’t be after any of the girls I am. Regardless of your gayness, don’t you think Rebecca’s hot?” Dean said. Cas broke out into a huge grin, and Dean realised right there it was _that_ he wanted responsible for on Cas’s face, not looks of hurt.

Who cares what Alex or anyone else thought anyways? Cas was right; he didn’t need to like guys to be friends with Cas. Cas was awesome. Like, really awesome. If they were reading more into it, that’s their fault, not his or Cas’s.

“Yeah, yeah she’s pretty,” Cas said, still smiling.

\---

During History, Cas gave Dean notes and pointed to different parts of the notes for little references Dean didn’t get. Dean’d never had anyone put this much effort into his education besides that odd teacher that believed that they could break through Dean’s shell of not trying hard enough until they realised he was only gonna be there a few days to weeks, and usually they’d get that from looking at any documentation on him, so that was pretty rare come senior year.

Suddenly Dean felt sick to his stomach. What if Cas was like that; what if he knew Dean’s shelf life at lasting in a new school was near non existent? Would he still help him? Something kept Dean from letting Cas be aware of this little tidbit.

It was kind of a nice feeling, wanting to try and feeling like it would be possible to succeed. It felt… stable, normal.

It felt a lot like his time with Robin had.

He swore he wouldn’t like another girl like that, swore to himself that he wouldn’t fall in love in high school ever. But Cas wasn’t a girl. Dean wasn’t gonna fall for _him_.

The thought occurred to him that he’d be better at protecting himself if he admitted a few things to himself. The thought was squashed very quickly by either a complete denial or maybe the off want to be reckless. Dean just labeled it as absurdity.

Turns out he had Biology with Cas as well, so that made the next part of the day much better. The teacher introduced him to the class (and also said he’d been “truant”. Dean ignored this and said he’d been sick. Luckily, now eighteen for two months, he didn’t need his father to sign this off--which always sucked because John never would since he’d be so far away, and the trouble’d escalate until someone realised they had no guardian, and Bobby’d be called and Bobby would go on his “ _John Winchester is awful to his sons,”_ speeches, which made Dean cringe, and he’d have to drive all the way out to pick them up. John would get angry at Dean and that was… it was just words, loud words, but it was difficult for Dean to take coming from his dad.)

The memories of those times were rushing together very painfully, so he tried to divert his mind from them.

So becoming eighteen was a good thing. Luckily good ol’ Sammy never had that problem because Sammy never broke the rules and skipped a class or nearly failed a class and couldn’t bring in a sheet to get signed letting parents know; no, Sammy was too busy getting a straight 4.0.

To say the least, Dean was very distracted in Advanced Biology. None of the things happening made sense with Dean’s knowledge at the extent of how to explain photosynthesis. Apparently they didn’t put him in Chemistry or Physics because those classes would be even harder to “Jump into”. Cas just kept whispering things to Dean to try to help him as they read over this article which just made Dean feel guilty because _he had no fucking idea what it was about._

He wanted to yell at Cas to give up and stop wasting his time, but instead he just listened to the stuff Cas was saying and pretending he understood, so Cas could at least learn what he could from the class without Dean’s needless ignorance or irrationality. Dean just kept thinking, which made it even harder to concentrate on the work he had no idea was even really about, that there were a million reasons why he should ignore Cas and blow him off completely because Cas helping him? It was a fucking huge waste of his time. Dean was a waste of his time. All Dean was was a waste of time.

Except when he was hunting. Then he was saving people. But he hadn’t been on a hunt in over a week, and he probably wouldn’t again considering his dad left him here instead of letting him bail on school, probably because he still wanted Dean to graduate.

Dean… thought he was going to be able to graduate? With all the schools he’d been going to it was all kinda complicated, but he’d gotten through most of it purely on short term memory and a little bit of hope.

Dean wasn’t that smart.

“Dean, tell me the truth, have you been understanding anything I’ve been explaining to you,” Cas asked, sighing at Dean’s feigned understanding.

“Yeah, all the parts that make sense,” Dean said, half sarcastically, half wishing Cas would just _give up._

“What about math class,” Cas asked. Dean feigned visible recollection.

“Calculus? Oh, you know. Smart guy like me can just pick up the book and understand the entire thing.”

“Why are you on the advanced track?” Cas asked. Dean didn’t know why Cas’s blatant disbelief he could be smart at any area of school hit him so hard; especially since it was completely true, and he’d been trying to show that all along.

Maybe that was why.

“Probably to make up for something for me to graduate. I don’t know. I just go to the classes my schedule says and hope there’s someone cute in the class,” Dean replied.

“Shh, whisper unless it’s about class,” Cas hushed him. Dean rolled his eyes. He decided that was queue for him to whisper the obvious question.

“Why are you interested in helping me succeed? Because you know I won’t, right? Even if I did try, there’s nothing I can do at this point to even try to fix the last years.”

“I want to see who you are. And you don’t. And Dean, don’t ever think it’s too late for anything,” Cas said.

Dean just laughed at him. Straight out laughed. It made him laugh again when Cas’s expression showed bewilderment. Cas didn’t know anything. It was too late for him to have a normal life; the monster that had killed his mother was proof of that, and the fact he couldn’t just drop Sammy (like Sammy would drop him) because Sammy was his responsibility. It was too late for him to succeed in high school because he wouldn’t even _be_ at this high school and then he’d have to do this all over, and he wasn’t smart like Sammy. He also wasn’t as convincing to the teachers. He also was aware that after this, he’d have to go into the family business.

Cas didn’t know any of this. Cas just thought he was throwing his life away because of the complications of maybe moving a few times. He probably thought Dean was lazy and dumb, which, while true, left out the part where Dean was a _hero._

Cas didn’t know anything. The bell rung and Dean just got up and left, not explaining his laughter one bit.


End file.
